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Grab a copy of our new book Marriage After God and join the marriage movement. https://marriageaftergod.com In this episode, we share our personal struggle with physical intimacy in the first 4 years of our marriage. We thought we had done everything rig Grab a copy of our new book Marriage After God and join the marriage movement. https://marriageaftergod.comIn this episode, we share our personal struggle with physical intimacy in the first 4 years of our marriage. We thought we had done everything right by saving our selves for marriage and believed God owned us a good healthy physical intimacy. But that was not how our marriage story began. In fact, we couldn't have intercourse for over 4 years. Listen and see how God used this trial to draw us closer to Himself and to each other. This part of our marriage story is also where our marriage ministry was born.-- FOR MORE ENCOURAGEMENT https://marriageaftergod.com https://instagram.com/marriageaftergodSHOP MARRIAGE RESOURCES https://shop.marriageaftergod.comFOR WIVES https://unveiledwife.com https://facebook.com/unveiledwifeFOR HUSBANDS https://husbandrevolution.com https://facebook.com/HusbandRevolutionREAD TRANSCRIPTHey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God.Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.Today, we're gonna share with you our struggle with intimacy. Hey, thanks for joining us again this week. As usual, we want to invite you to subscribe to our channel so you get notified every single time we upload an episode.Also, we would love for you to share this video with your married couple friends.So, in this episode, we're gonna just dive into one aspect of our marriage. It's been the one that has defined our ministry in many ways. It's the one that started us into the ministry of just encouraging marriages and wanting to impart to other people what God's been teaching us. It's in the area of intimacy. We did an episode telling our whole overarching, you know, marriage testimony. But, we just want to talk mostly, in this episode, about what the intimacy issues were, what we dealt with, when it started. Hopefully, you guys can get just bit deeper into knowing us. And also, maybe get some hope if you're in a situation similar to ours because we've talked to people that have had similar situations and they felt like us, hopeless. So, in sharing with you, we hope that you would be encouraged and also maybe even encouraged to tell your own story to someone to find help if you need it. So, that's what our goal is today.Yeah, sharing about sex and intimacy is not an easy topic to cover. Like, it's not easy or natural to just tell the world about the struggles that you've had.I even fought you on doing this one, this episode.You did.I was like, do we really want to talk about that right now?But, here's the thing. I found that as we shared our story over the years, we found that it has brought healing and freedom and encouragement to other people in hopeless situations or painful situations. Situations where, just like us, they felt completely alone or too embarrassed to talk about it. So, we wrestled with all those insecurities in the beginning, too. But, as we started to talk about it, we found that it was okay to talk about it and we should be talking about certain things so that other people know how to get help. Or just be encouraged to know that they're not alone in those struggles and to give them that little bit of hope that will carry them on through the next day and the next day and the next day.In reality, the Bible talks about just being children of light. We've talked about this in the past. The idea is the enemy loves to keep us in the darkness. We like to keep our sin in the darkness. We like to keep to pains in the darkness, don't tell anyone, don't share, you're the only one dealing with it. You know what it does, is it keeps us right there. You never find healing, you never find victory. So, we've found that the more we talk about it, the more victory we have over it. It doesn't control us emotionally, it doesn't control us physically, it doesn't control us spiritually. So, our ministry and hope is that we're helping people, teaching people, showing people by example. Hey, pull those things into the light so that they can become light.Yeah, and here's the thing. Sex and intimacy is a huge part of marriage. So, for all those listening, all the husbands and wives who listen to our podcast, I mean, they are dealing with that on a day to day basis anyway.Yeah, in some form or fashion.Yeah, so we need to be talking about it. Aaron, why don't you start out by just giving a little backstory from your side of before marriage, so leading up to marriage, what were some of your expectations about sex?Well, I saved myself. I didn't have intercourse with anyone outside of marriage. I don't have a squeaky clean past, though. I struggled with pornography my whole life. It was something that it was a daily event for me. In my mind, somewhere along the way, and I know a lot of people think this, a lot of men, I thought that marriage would fix it. I thought, "Oh, this is just something that I need now." In reality, marriage only amplified it. Which is a crazy thing to think about. But, marriage doesn't fix sin, you know? We're called to walk in that purity and that light and the marriage isn't the key to it, it isn't the answer. But I thought it was. But, I did save myself physically, even though I didn't save myself spiritually, which is sad. Getting married, I just was thinking, "Okay, now it's gonna be all good. "I'm gonna be able to enjoy my wife."You were looking forward to it.I was looking forward to it like I should, right? Maybe looking forward to it at a wrong level because of the things that I was dealing with and walking in. But, that's where I was at. I was looking forward to the wedding night. I was looking forward to a life with my wife and being able to have intercourse and enjoy my wife in that way. I just thought that God owed me that because I had waited like the good Christian boy that I was.So, my story is very similar. I grew up a Christian. I saved myself physically from intercourse. But, also didn't have a squeaky clean past. I mean, there were some relationships that I had where we did other things. But, truly my heart was to give my body to my husband. I did what I could to save that for you. I had expectations of, I had really high expectations of it being all fulfilling. Like, I thought--This is it. This is the answer.Yeah, like I envisioned our honeymoon night and I saw us being together. I just had a lot of hope for being fulfilled in that area of my life because it was something that, you know, growing up, it was always like, "No, no, no, you can't do that." There was a vision of freedom there that I was looking forward to.There was also, I remember we talked about this early on in our healing process, in the middle of our marriage, I should say now, where we talked about how not only was it you were looking for it to be all fulfilling, but you were looking for me to also fulfill other things. Just emotionally and you saw me, you had me on a pedestal. I had you on the same kind of pedestal. So, it wasn't just sexually, but it was like--Everything.Everything.Every aspect of life.That, again, going along the process of walking through all of these things, we learned that our expectations were just so out of whack. No one talked, like, we had the sex talk, maybe. I don't even actually remember having the sex talk.Well, we did do a series of pre-marital counseling.Which had some sex talk stuff.It was more encouragement leading up to the marriage about what marriage was gonna be like, but--No one warned us that it might not work. No one said like, "Hey, just so you know, "it might not work." Which, we've sadly had people tell us, after hearing our story, that's why they, they believe in sex outside of marriage. "Well, what about test drive?" And using those kinds of derogatory terms. But, I didn't marry you for sex. I saw it as a fruit of our marriage. So, that mentality is just totally demonic and wicked. If you're thinking that way or you know people that are thinking that way, the end result's not sex. The end result is a godly marriage for, you know, doing ministry for God together. But, we had those wrong perspectives. We had those wrong attitudes. And, to be honest, because of what we were going through, I remember very vividly, all those thoughts I had. Like, "Oh, man, I wish I would've "not saved myself for marriage." I actually remember regretting that.I was on the other end having thoughts of, "We're incompatible." "This isn't gonna work because of this one aspect "of our marriage." So, before we jump too far ahead, let's talk about the wedding day and the wedding night.Could we skip that part? Let's go right to when it was all better.All of our dreams came crumbling down. It was so devastating.We'll just say this. We've redone our honeymoon several times because our first honeymoon was so bad. First of all, we find that that's the night, it was the night that we realized sex was not gonna happen. Now, we had hope still because we're like, "Oh, this is day one. "People have said it's gonna hurt."Yeah, "It'll take a couple days." And then it turned into weeks and months and years.But, not only did, you know, we weren't even able to consummate our marriage. Like, we still were together and we still did things. We're not gonna get vulgar on our show. But, we were together. We just couldn't fully be together.I remember weeping. I remember just crying--Yeah, like, "Why is this not working?" I remember being patient, too.Oh, you were so patient. But, I just wanted to go lock myself in the bathroom for a couple hours and be by myself because I felt already that I've disappointed you or that I couldn't fulfill your needs. Those insecurities came on, like, immediately.It's natural because first of all, the wedding day was really intense and long and you're just tired and you're like, "Now, what are we supposed to do?" You can't be prepared for, like, stepping in to holy matrimony. It's a weird thing. So, we're like, for the first time ever. We had never slept with anyone before. Now, we're supposed to be like perfectly compatible and everything's supposed to be fine. I also remember on our wedding night, I remember thinking, I think we even talked about this, how our whole lives growing up Christians, sex was a sinful thing.Yeah, it was a no-no. It was a bad thing.Not just a no-no, it was like the worst thing. That's what it felt like. And then all of a sudden we're married and, boom, it's like, "Nope, now it's all good." We had these totally twisted views of sex because no one in a healthy way within the church that we were raised in and the churches in general, taught us to think about sex. I don't remember ever hearing from a youth pastor, like, "Sex is a good thing."Right, the gift that it is in marriage.And that you should be protecting yourself because of how good it is and how valuable it is. It's like protecting, you know, a wealthy investment or a fine piece of china or like these things, they're valuable, but they're only used in the right time for the right thing. That was never really, like, taught to us. We just had this perspective of, like, sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, married. Oh, now it's no longer sin. And it should all work and it's gonna be great. And your perspective should perfectly shift and change.But, here's the thing. Had it worked, would our perspective had changed? Because it didn't work--Well, it didn't and it highlighted all of those things. I would say, it might not have highlighted those things fast enough. We've talked to people that they don't even talk about these things. They don't realize these broken expectations, they're uncommunicated lessons that we've learned. Because they don't really struggle with it, it manifests in other ways. But, because we were hit head on with this problem, I think we actually started communicating about things that people mostly never get to. Like, "Why is this supposed to be so easy "in the first place?" We started talking about all these things that we learned. And even if it did work, I remember you specifically had a very hard time being naked around me.Yeah, feeling comfortable.Which, in the beginning, like, of course it's gonna be uncomfortable and it was. It was like, "Oh, this is weird."It's just different, yeah.But, we actually, like, I don't remember feeling clean about it because of it's always been sin and all of a sudden now it's supposed to be good. So, not only could we not have sex, and it was painful and there was tears and it's our honeymoon, but, I also remember not fully feeling free with you. I remember feeling kind of dirty. Like, "When is this gonna feel "like it's supposed to feel like?" because no one ever gave us, do you remember feeling that way?Yeah, and I think that a part of it, too, was the sin that was wrapped up with sexual intimacy. For you, pornography, for me it was you know, things that I would think about and books that I would read. We both had sin wrapped up around--We had sexual sin that we brought into our marriage.Right, so it makes sense that we would also feel dirty when it doesn't work. We couldn't be together the way we were supposed to.Which highlighted us desiring our sinful desires even more because now we're like, "Oh, now we're justified in our sin "because this is supposed to work "and, God, you're not giving me what I deserve "therefore, I'm okay to do this over here." Which we weren't, but those are things that we thought.So, just moving on in the story, a couple weeks go by. I think I talked to my mom and maybe a girlfriend about our situation and they kind of just looked at me funny and said--Like, "You shouldn't be having a problem."Yeah, "You shouldn't be having a problem. "I'm sure it'll work itself out," type of thing. What was going on in your head in those weeks.You know me, I'm an optimist. So, I just kept telling you and myself. "I've heard from various people over time "that we were becoming married "that it might be painful and that it takes time "because we've never done that before." So, I just kep repeating--You were really encouraging.I was hoping my happy thoughts would pay off.Actually, for several years, I feel like you were so stable in this area emotionally even though you were probably wrestling, I'm sure you were wrestling--Hiding, hiding what I was feeling.You were hiding good because I felt, as your wife, very encouraged even in my brokenness, that there was hope and there was encouragement because of the words that you showered over us. I just really appreciated that. So, just for those listening, if you guys are facing intimacy struggles and, whether it's the husband or the wife, the other spouse can be a huge encouragement in this area simply by sharing words of hope, visions of the future, encouraging--Praying.Praying.Yeah, which we did, often, every single time.You know, suggesting those hints of, like, "Hey, why don't you…
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